Women's Volleyball Releases 2013 Schedule

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Harvard women's volleyball head coach Jen Weiss has announced the team's schedule for 2013 which features 12 matches at home in the Malkin Athletic Center and the team's first trip to the West Coast in seven years.

"The Ivy League will be very competitive this season and the exciting thing is that there is so much parity," Weiss commented. "Every Ivy League match is a close one and takes a lot of preparation. We will look to compete for a title and count on a routine of hard work in every practice. This group of upperclassmen is committed to the out-of-season strength and conditioning and to each other. We competed at a high level this spring and are looking forward to keeping that going."

The Crimson will open its campaign at home for the first time since 2010 as it hosts Holy Cross, UMES and Hofstra in the eighth annual Harvard Invitational. Harvard will first take to the court Friday, September 6 at 7 p.m. versus the Crusaders before squaring off with the Hawks and Pride Saturday, Sept. 7. This year's senior class of Erin Cooney, Natalie Doyle and Teresa Skelly is 5-4 in their careers in the tournament with the Crimson owning a 12-9 record overall.

Harvard heads to San Diego the following weekend to take on San Diego State, Southern Methodist and San Francisco in the Aztec Invitational. This will mark the first trip out west for the Crimson since 2006 when it appeared in the SJSU Hyatt Invitational in San Jose, Calif.

The squad returns to the friendly confines of the MAC Sept. 18 for a matchup with UMass Lowell where Harvard has gone 18-14 over the past three seasons with back-to-back winning campaigns. The Crimson will then head across the Charles for a pair of meetings at Northeastern (Sept. 21) and Boston College (Sept. 22) in the second annual New England Challenge.

Harvard's final non-conference tune-up comes against New Hampshire at home Sept. 24.

The 27th season of Ivy League women's volleyball gets underway Sept. 27 as the Crimson hosts Dartmouth, marking the 13th straight year that the two have opened the conference schedule against one another. Harvard will then head back out on the road for trips to Yale (Oct. 4) and Brown (Oct. 5) before welcoming Cornell (Oct. 11) and Columbia (Oct. 12) to Cambridge.

A three-match road trip awaits the Crimson to close out October as Harvard will travel to Penn (Oct. 18), Princeton (Oct. 19) and Dartmouth (Oct. 25) in consecutive weeks. Harvard will then have the luxury of hosting four straight matches to open November with Brown (Nov. 1), Yale (Nov. 2), Princeton (Nov. 8) and Penn (Nov. 9) each making a trip up north.

Harvard's schedule concludes at Columbia (Nov. 15) and Cornell (Nov. 16) before a possible trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Harvard will return 10 letterwinners to the court this season including co-captains Doyle (2.39 dps in 2012) and Kristen Casey (3.80 dps). Caroline Walters (1.06 bps) was an All-Ivy League second team performer in 2012 at middle blocker and will be joined on the court by Cooney (2.14 kps), Caroline Holte (1.00 bps), Hannah Schmidt (4.78 aps), Skelly (0.88 bps) and Kathleen Wallace (2.81 kps).